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Thursday, March 20, 2014

The Ohio Art Mighty Tiny Record Player

Is it just me or does the girl on the box of the Ohio Art Mighty Tiny Record Player bear an eerie resemblance to comic strip character Nancy?

In 1970, Ohio Art (famous for the Etch-A-Sketch) invented a new toy phonograph, named the Mighty Tiny Record Player, hailed as the "World's Smallest Record Player".

The Mighty Tiny used tiny 2" inch records custom recorded and manufactured for the Ohio Art Company specifically for the Mighty Tiny. The records had a playing time of a few seconds each.

The records were so small, there was no room for printed or etched
information on the discs. There was only a number on them and you had to
match them to a corresponding number on the disc's sleeve.

The playing system was essentially a steel needle attached to a thin steel bar, which vibrated against a thin inverted plastic dome, which acted as the diaphragm/speaker. There was no volume control. Power was activated when the record placed on the turntable and the lid was closed. Playing acoustically with no electronic amplification, there was no earphone jack.

The unit came with three randomly selected records.

The turntable was powered by one 'AA' battery and had an adjustable speed control. But the actual speed of the cheap motor was unknown (it's believed somewhere around 100 RPM!) and it was never constant and 'fluttered'. But hey, it was a cheap toy for little kids. Not a Bang & Olufsen audiophile turntable.

Another model of the Mighty Tiny was called the Stereoper, which resembled a console stereo. Contrary to what the name may insinuate, it did not reproduce "stereo" sound. There were also little storage cases for your Mighty Tiny record collection.

The recordings themselves sold in packs of four. I believe there were somewhere around 60 titles (though the actual number is unknown.) None of these recordings have ever appeared in any other conventional format.

There was also a toy called Sears Talking Computer (not to be confused withSears Talking Computron, which was different). I picked one up at the flea market this weekend and it had one of these inside, which is what got me on the search to begin with.